Ukraine – Kiev’s Five Day War Machine. What actually happened after rioters chased out the elected President. How they alienated the large minority who were not hostile to the Soviet past, and made the Russian-backed secession of Crimea almost inevitable. And the strong fascist connections.

The right hand of anarchy. Mrs Thatcher in the 1980s took an axe to the roots of Britishness. This is not how she saw it, of course. She genuinely believed that she was removing an excrescence on True Britishness. Nice theory, shame about the facts.

Hong Kong shanghaied. The true history of the ‘opium city’ created by Britain when it broke open China and forced it to accept Western values.

Why ‘The Individual’ is a muddled idea. (From one viewpoint, the ‘average individual’ is a bronze-skinned hermaphrodite less than 5 feet tall. That comes from taking your abstractions a few degrees too far. )

Why Trotksy’s politics achieved nothing solid. Noting his clever observation that the Bolshevik / Menshevik split was between ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ politics, but is inability to derive useful politics from this. And the interesting similarities and difference between him and Mao.

The World as a Global Night-Club. Written in connection with the death of Diana, Princess of Wales. But making the general point that ‘global society’ is much more like a night-club than a village. People can see each other but mostly do not know each other.

Civilisation Alley. Globalism before European Imperialism, considered as a broad band of advanced cultures from North-West Europe to South India, plus the sophisticated and diverse cultures of East Asia.